Murphy's Law
by ChaosCarlos
Summary: 500 Years after being placed in cryo containment, justice gets a helping hand.
1. Murphy's Law

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the character/places/props in this story.

* * *

Captain Malcom Reynolds was reading the latest warrant for the capture of River and Simon Tam. The price on their heads had lowered conciderably. It was once 200,000 credits for just River, but now it's been lowered to 5,000 - for both. Not worth the time of any bounty hunter, so Mal had no reason to fear a repeat of the Jubal Early incident. Due to the events on Miranda most of those responsible for those events had either been bound by law and sentenced to a year for every person who died on the planet, or had commited suicide mere hours after the broadcast. Mal figured that not many in the government were left who knew of the experiments that had been performed on River Tam, even fewer knew the reasons behind them.

Mal sat back in the pilots chair taking a sip of his coffee when the cortex screen began flashing indicating an incoming call. Sitting up he saw an all too fimilar face.

"Sir Warrick Harrow, what a pleasure to see you again." It was indeed a pleasure, of all the people Serenity and her crew had dealt with over the years Sir Warrick Harrow was one of the few truely honest people they'd smuggled for.

"Captain Reynolds I heard you were on your way to Persephone and wondered if you're in need of work." The twinkle in his eye indicated to Mal that this was going to be a big job, pleanty illigal and extremely profitable.

"Well we're meant to be meetin' up with Badger to unload our current fully 'legal' cargo here. I'm sure after we're done dealin' with that bottom feedin' sewer rat we'll be pleanty ready to do business with you Sir."

"Thank you Captain."

Once Mal had settled back into his seat he took a sip of his now cold coffee, when quietly walking up into the bridge in her nightgown River stood behind Mal and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Gorramit girl!! Don't go sneaking up on a man like that, you might get yourself...um...well...you might end up killing a man as he pulls his weapon on you!"

Ever since Miranda River had been clearer in both thought and speech, much to the relief of the crew who could now have more than a half decent conversation with her on any subject, except sex of course the crew usualy backed away from the subject...well almost the crew.

"I wouldn't kill you Captain...unless you annoy me that is."

* * *

Kaylee was working in the Engine room, but she wasn't working on the engine oh no. She was working on something that needed even more love and attention.

"Ohhhh Simon...don't stop..." Well who said she couldn't have the love and attention back? Just as Kaylee was really getting into her '_examination_' who should walk in but Captain Malcom 'ship-board-relationships-always-lead-to-trouble' Reynolds.

"Kaylee I need to go ove...ahhhhhh!!"

Just as Mal expressed his surprise both Kaylee and Simon bounced apart and began picking up various articles of clothing that had been thrown around in those many moments of passion they tended to experience nowadays.

"Sorry cap'n we was just talkin' and then...you know how it is...it gets hot in here and when I'm hot I..."

"I REALLY don't need to hear this!"

Simon was just pulling up on his shirt when he noticed that standing behind Mal was his sweet innocent sister.

"River!! What are you doing up? You should be in bed!"

Mal turned a full 180 degrees only to come face to face with the young reader. This was turning into all kinds of uncomfortable far too quickly for Mal liking, not to say he was liking any part of what was going on.

"I'm not the only one who should be in bed...boob!" She looked at Kaylee. "I'm leaving him in your hands now, I've looked after him long enough."

"Ughh...sure River sweety" and with that River was gone and dancing her way up the steps with the kind of grace that would have made any companion jealous. "So...Cap'n what can I do ya for?"

Mal, still in a semi-state of shock just looked at Kaylee barely registering the words coming out of her mouth. "Oh! Yeah well...how the repairs on the 'mil-whats-ya-ma-kigger' coming along?"

"You mean the Miltomeder Coil?"

"Yeah that thing, how it coming?" Mal never was good with engines, infact anything technical was often met with a confused and 'me-captain-me-no-know-big-words' kinda look.

"Oh I fixed that hours ago! But I think we need to buy a new one anyway, this one's liable to break again soon and we don't want to repeat what happened with the compression coil now do we?" Mal sure as hell didn't want to repeat what happened with the compression coil, he'd only just gotten over the sting in his pride from having the wool pulled over his eyes by some scavangers.

"Right we...good...I'll see to getting a new one. In the mean time I'm off to see to other captainey duties, like checking up on our resident who...companion."

* * *

"Jayne! Gorramit Jayne where the hell are ya!?" Mal was fuming, it was Jayne's turn to clean out the sceptic tank and he'd been putting it off for a few days now. Mal being the understanding type was now charging down into the galley to find Jayne helping himself to some of River's home cooked soup. The girl was a genius and could do everything better than anyone else...even cook. "Jayne!! Get your fingers out of that pot and go clean out the sceptic tank...NOW!!"

"Awww come on Mal, you know I did it last time when Kaylee got sick and missed her turn!"

"Jayne...what you do out of the kindness of your heart don't mean squat on my boat, you stick to the time table I set, dong ma?."

With a grunt and a look that could paralize cute little puppies Jayne left to clean out the sceptic tank. This was often the routine with the whole crew when it came to this particular chore, except of course Zoe she'd simply say 'Yes sir' and have it done within an hour. As Mal was about to follow Jayne to make sure he did his duty instead of about turn back to his bunk the comm activated.

"Captain Daddy, we're coming up on Persephone. We'll be hitting atmo in five minutes...oh and don't worry about Jayne he'll clean the sceptic tank out...or I'll kill him with my brain!"

Mal felt relieved with the knowledge, now all he had to worry about was River not getting them burned when they hit atmo.

"I heard that!"

* * *

The meeting with Sir Warrick Harrow had gone smoother than they could have ever hoped for, Badger didn't even try to declare his claim in the transaction when he, Zoe and Jayne went to pay him a visit, not that he had any claim, the dirty little toe rag.

"Mal I wanna get me some trim, so I'll see ya on the boat tomorrow."

"Not so fast Jayne, we're not staying that long. As soon as the ship is re-fueled we're leaving. No but's, if's, maybe's or C'mon Mal's"

"Awww but C'mon Mal! I ain't gotten me no trim in weeks!" Mal just glared at Jayne and the big man shut up. As they were walking Jayne kepy giving Zoe that lusty glare of his that he got when he'd gone too long without female companionship. "Wha 'bout you Zo? You ain't had any in some time...what you say we..."

Before he could even finish that sentence Jayne was face down in the dirty with the barrel of Zoe's gun pressed firmly against the back of his skull.

"If you EVER make a comment like that again I will end you so fast that you'll need a week to catch up with the fact you're dead!" Zoe never let her emotions get the better of her but the thought of sleeping with anyone but her dearly departed husband was enough to drive the woman into a fit of rage so powerful that it was damn near a miricle that Jayne was still breathing.

Without saying another word Zoe holstered her weapon and left Jayne to comtemplate if he should have his mouth sown shut or not. Of course typical Jayne he never picked up on the message, just grunted and released a string of curse words and muttered something about that time of the month.

Mal really didn't need this, his first mate was usualy the one that kept him from shooting Jayne and as amusing as it would be to watch Jayne get turned all corpsafied like, he needed the brute to help him haul the conciderably large cargo into Serenity.

"So may I ask what the illigal cargo of the day is?" Asked Dr Simon Tam, who noticed that whatever it was wasn't going to fit into any of the smuggling holes he'd previouly been privy to.

"Well Doc, we're not too sure, infact not even Sir Warrick was too sure of what this is. All we know is that it's some kind o' sealed cointainer from Earth-That-Was." Mal patted the container as if to say 'don't worry we've dealt with bigger and rarer cargo'.

"Earth-That-Was!? Then whatever this is it should be worth a fortune. Do you want me to dope Jayne just incase he decided to kill us all in our sleep and sell it for himself."

"No thanks Doc, I feel safe enough leavin' Jayne free to roam the ship at night...besides he don't know how to fly the gorram boat." This fact didn't really ease Simon at all due to the fact that Jayne never showed the ability to think more than one step ahead of where he currently was. He may kill the crew and then realise he's one pilot short of a flyable ship.

* * *

It had been three days since they'd taken on this cargo to be transported from Persephone to Greenleaf where Sir Warrick has a storage facility for this most valuble cargo. It'll be another three weeks before they reach the planet but thanks to some intervention by a certain sash wearing Lord they won't have to worry about the Alliance as the official reason for their voyage being they're transporting an important dignitary of some sort to an important meeting on Greenleaf. They even had the transmission protocol that allowed them to pass inspection without being borded, which Mal was loving by the way.

River waltzed into the cargo bay and looked at the container with sad eyes. "So lonely, needs to wake up now." Being the super genius that she is she figured out the combination sequence to unlocking the container. She was very impressed by the lock itself, she rarely ever came across a problem that challenged her and it seemd that the people of Earth-That-Was were a lot smarter than most give them credit for.

"What ya doin' there lil' albatross?" Mal was doing his usual rounds checking to make sure everyone was asleep and that Jayne wasn't raiding the galley for some late night snacking.

"Needs to wake up!" For some reason after all this time since Maranda she'd suddenly gone all criptic again, and as usual when she was criptic she became unpredictable, not that she's ever predictable when she's making sense either..

"Ughh...everyone's asleep no need to be wakin' any of em up...especially not Jayne you know how that man gets grumpy if he don't get his beauty...well his anger sleep." River rolled her eyes at Mal and that usualy meant he was either being an idiot or was miles off from what she meant...but usualy it meant both.

"Not them, HIM!" she was pointing at the container and now Mal was all kinds of confused and worried. Sir Warrick didn't say anything about this being live cargo, infact he didn't say what this cargo was at all. Probably didn't know himself. All he knew was that it had been in his family since they'd settled on Persephone from Earth-That-Was.

As the Captain was running all kinds of possibilities in his head as to what could be inside River had finally deactivated the final lock.

"There...problem solved." She stepped back and watched as the container opened slowly, a siren began playing loudly that awoke the rest of the crew and they all began fumbling into the cargo hold to see what was going on.

"What in the good Gorram is goin' on!? I'm tryin' to get some shut eye and some _chou ma niao_ of a fool wakes me up with this noise!" Jayne was obviously not a happy bunny, he'd brought Vera out with him as proof that his dreaming of fine women giving him all the trim he wanted was the highlight of his day, and now it had been taken from him.

Zoe was standing preparing to draw her weapon at any moment, no telling what was going to go down now that River had opened this thing but knowing the girl wasn't as crazy as she was before she was more concerned about Jayne blowing a hole in the hull. "Sir? Should we be concerned right about now, there's no telling what's in there."

"Don't worry Zo, our lil' Albatross ain't willingly put us in danger before so there's no need to worry...for now." Mal was confident that River knew what she was doing but he was worried about one thing, Sir Warrick wasn't going to be pleased, not one little bit!

The doors continued to open but got stuck half way, obviously the external mechanisms had rusted over the last five hundred years but from the cryo atmosphere within the container he was sure that whatever or whoever was inside was in one piece. Just as Mal was gonna order Kaylee to fetch something help pry open the doors with, two large metal hands appeard from within the container and grabbed hold of both doors, pushing them open with such force that they visably bent when they couldn't go any further.

Everyone could now see the contents of the container standing infront of them, all 6ft 11" of him. As he stepped out from the container each footfall created a heavy clunk as metal met metal.

"_Da-shiang bao-tza shr duh lah doo-tze._ What the hell is that!?" Jayne raised Vera ready to blow whatever the hell this thing was away. Mal sensing there was gonna be trouble if Jayne didn't stow his weapon had to say it quick.

"Jayne, hang it up...we don't want to...umm...upset...it."

"Him not 'it'" River corrected as Mal just kept staring at thier cargo.

"What the gorram is it? River?" Mal wanted to know, he didn't like surprises, especially surprises in the shape of cargo that ended up walking out of it's own container. But then suddenly he spoke.

"Crime Prevention Unit - 001. Robocop. Listing prime directives. Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law." Those final three words caused Mal to cringe a little. It was bad enough having the Alliance knocking on his door, but to have a machine that did the same work didn't bring any comfort. This was going to be one very interesting day.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

This is an old story, not exactly one of my best but I kinda got tired of leaving it to rust and decided to pick it back up again.


	2. Worries

_Story continued from Mal's POV_

* * *

Later that same day the cyborg was led to the kitchen area while I took some time to think of what to do or even say to a 500 year old being from Earth-That-Was. An hour passed before I came to where it...he was standing watching River and Kaylee playing tacks.

"So, you're from Earth-That-Was I take it?" It was a stupid question but I really didn't know what else to say to a cyborg-thingy.

"_Yes. I served the people of Delta City before I was re-called and stored away five years after the fall of OCP._" The cyborg looked towards me as if it was concidering something I'd said. "_What do you mean by Earth-That-Waw?_" Before I could answer and probably shove my feet in my mouth, the good Dr Tam came to my rescue with his unique knowledge of history. Standing next to me Simon tried as best he could to explain.

"Well I don't know how to break this to you but, you're not on Earth anymore. You see about five-hundred years ago we left Earth on several large starships. We call that event "The Exodus". Millions of people, animals and plants were transported across the galaxy to a new solar system with over seventy planets and moons for us to terraform and colonize. Right now you're on the transport ship Serenity and we're on our way to one of the outer-rim worlds to deliver some...cargo." He looked at me as he said that final word knowing full well that besides Sir Warrick's cryo-thing we were transporting illigaly procured food stuffs for an outrageous price. Hey I can't help it if I don't have any say in Badger's marketing ethics. The doc looked again at the cyborg who's only reaction was to return to watching River and Kaylee, obviously he had a lot to think about. Never knew cyborgs could look so...lost.

_While the young man was talking Robocop performed a voice-stress analasys and calculated a 99.9 probability that he was telling the truth. If that was so then everyone he knew from Earth was dead. Sargeant Reed, Jimmy even his tech crew, they were all dead. "I see" with that he turned around and continued to ponder as to the nature of the young raven haired girl who's released him. He calculated that she was the one to release him due to her proximity to his cryogenic module, there was more to this girl than met the eye._

* * *

We'd left the cyborg alone for a while. So we could get some discussin' done.

"Mal come on! Did you see the size of it's handcannon! I know guns Mal and I ain't never seen one like that before. Kinda looks like one of those old Earth-That-Was Berretas. Except this one is HUGE!"

"What are you gettin' at Jayne?" I was starting getting one of my captainy headaches that I got when dealing with Jayne.

"I'm just sayin' we space the robot and sell that gun o' his...it...whatever! It might make us more than that Lassiter ever could!" It was interesting to say the least but this cargo belonged to our one and only honest client, Sir Warrick. I wasn't about to piss off the only client who hasn't tried to kill me, at least not on purpose. Nope I'd learned in transport captain school that doing that would be business-suicide. Thankfully for me I had Zoe who was doing a lot better these last few month, she'd even gotten over Kayle and Simon's constant humping sessions, which I oh so envied...I wished I could get over my _mei-mei_ being taken by some core pred sissy-boy.

"Jayne" Just that one word from Zoe's lips was enough to shut the big man-ape up. "I say we stow it away somewhere and get this delivery over and done with. If the Alliance find us carting a cyborg...well, it would be bad." Zoe didn't look too worried, no she saved that for war and Reavers, no she looked more annoyed that we've got more troubles, and just to make matters worse, Inara had to ask the question that I knew would upset Jayne. And upset Jayne would only make my headache WORSE!

"I'm not really up to date on Alliance laws but what's so bad about transporting a cyborg?" Sweet innocent Inara...well ok not so much innocent but sweet Inara, always in the dark about older laws. Again Dr Simon Tam. Doctor, Historian and Criminal Mastermind had the answer.

"I'm sure you all know Shan-Yu, the psychotic homocidal madman. Aside from torturing people which he infact made an art out of, he'd sanctioned several sick medical and scientific experiments on political prisoners. One of these was to take the brain from a living man or woman and place it inside a mechanical body to create a cybernetic-super-soldier. He'd wanted to use them to conquer the core worlds of the Anglo-Sino Alliance, but thankfully his reign came to an end before his plan could take effect. When the Alliance found out they'd instantly outlawed all research and production any and all cybernetic-lifeforms. If they find him with us, they won't question where he came from they'll simply take us into custody, melt him for scrap and leave us to rot in some prison."

"Gorramit! Mal! Space it! Space it NOW!!" Typical Jayne, if it's dangerous space it. River's turn to add her insight.

"He won't hurt us, he was a nice man robbed of life and now he serves to protect. Kinda like Captain Daddy!"

Well now that was interesting. The Captain being compared to a 500 year old cybrog. Brings a tear to the eye. It really does. But the question remained, what in the deep go-se of the special hell was I going to do? We were still three weeks out from Greenleaf and the thought that the Alliance might not buy our cover of transporting a dignitary had entered my mind. Oh I hated complications and you couldn't get more complicated than having a psychic assasin as your pilot and a cyborg from Earth-That-Was, concidered by the Alliance an illigal entity as cargo. It was going to be an interesting three weeks to say the least.

* * *

It had been five days after I'd decided that it would be best to just stow the cyborg in shuttle-two and re-seal his container. River could always re-open it and get him back inside if the Alliance ever did board us. Not like they could open one of River's coded locks. Plus it's not every day you got a sort of living witness from Earth-That-Was on your boat. Then again it wasn't everyday you got someone bigger and scarier than Jayne on your boat not taking into account psychic's, bounty hunters or government Opperatives.

"Mal..." Great, I should have known that my quiet contimplation would be interupted sooner or later, and of course it had to be Inara. "Mal, I don't think it's a good idea to keep the cyborg on board, what if he gets loose. They must have sealed him away for a reason. Other than his company going bankrupt."

"Inara, River says he won't hurt any o' us and I believe her. The lil' Albetross ain't never been wrong before, and ain't lead us astray either." There that might shut her up for once!

"Mal, you can't put all your faith into a little girl, you should..." Oh that's it!

"I should what Inara!? Who should I put _ALL_ my faith in? God? I did that once and it didn't quite work out between us! How about Jayne? Should I go worship at the temple of Jayne back in Canton?" Oh yeah I'm on a roll...lets see if I can get her all hot and bothered...mmmm Inara all hot and...NO! Naughty captain! You'll go to the special hell for thoughts like that!

"Mal I'm just saying, River may be a genius but she doesn't have the life experinece that we do..."

"We? If I remember correctly before you met me you knew practically nothin' on the finer points of life out in the rim. All you ever worried about back then was if you'd broken a nail! That GIRL has OUR experinece. She can read our minds remember, she can probably pull from all our experiences and use her super-genius mind to come up with solutions that would take us years to come up with! Now if you don't mind Miss Serra, I have a ship to run and if you don't have anything productive to add to this predicament then might I suggest you just leave the rest of us to get on with it! Thank you!!"

And with that I stomed off leaving a rather bewildered Inara Serra behind. I knew I shouldn't have snapped like that, but that woman...oohhhhh that woman just made my blood boil and not just in the bad way. As I reached the bridge I noticed River sitting in the co-pilots seat. She span around to face me with tears in her eyes.

"What's wrong li'l Albatross?" I hated to see women cry, women are meant to be happy and joyfull and...oh hell what dream world am I living in, women cry get over it Reynolds!

"My Captain trusts me...and believes in me..." the tears started to run down her cheeks. Ok so not tears of sadness but tears of joy. I could live with that.

"Of course I do _mei-mei_, you've given me something to believe in again. You brought some of the old Mal Reynolds back. I'm not much of a mean old man anymore, now I'm more of a grumpy old man." She smiled and wiped her tears away then cocked her head in that comteplative way she does when she's thinking which she does a lot of by the way.

"Almost fixed now...time to move on and fix the other old man!." With that rather...odd sentence she bounded out the door and towards the cargo bay. But now that she's mentioned it...yes I am fixed..almost.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

Second Chapter is up, there's not much from Murphy himself yet, however he'll probably have a larger role in the next chapter, I just wanted to get the crew's reaction to his existance out forst. Anyway, enjoy. R&R welcome.


End file.
